by Cathy Ace
PRAISE FOR THE CAIT MORGAN MYSTERIES
“In the finest tradition of Agatha Christie . . . Ace brings us the closed-room drama, with a dollop of romantic suspense and historical intrigue.” —Library Journal
“Touches of Christie or Marsh but with a bouquet of Kinsey Millhone.” —Globe and Mail
“A sparkling, well-plotted, and quite devious mystery in the cozy tradition.” —Hamilton Spectator
“Perfect comfort reading. You could call it Agatha Christie set in the modern world, with great dollops of lovingly described food and drink.” —CrimeFictionLover.com
Dedicated to the Shirley in my life, my mum
OWNERS’ PRIVATE DINING ROOM
TSAR! CASINO
LAS VEGAS
SEATING ARRANGEMENTS FOR DINNER SEPTEMBER 24, 2012
1. Ian
2. Miss Shirley
3. Jack
4. Clemence
5. Julie
6. Svetlana
7. Jimmy
8. Carl
9. Art
10. Bud
11. Cait
12. Tom
13. Tanya
House Lights Down
THE PAST FEW HOURS HAD been an indulgent blend of delicious food, engaging conversation, Bud’s wonderful company, and some exciting wines, all in a setting I never dreamed I’d get the chance to visit—the owners’ private dining room at the fabulous Tsar! Casino and Hotel on The Strip in Las Vegas. I’d left our table for a moment and had just finished using the washroom’s fancy hand dryer, which screamed like a jet engine while threatening to rip the skin from my fingers, when there was a deafening clang. The subtle lighting in the washroom cut out. Luckily, the pulsating neon beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass wall provided some illumination. I pulled open the door to the adjoining restaurant to discover whether it, too, had been plunged into darkness. It had. Even the piped operatic arias that had accompanied our dinner had fallen silent.
A woman called out, “Everybody stay where you are, please. The security system has been activated—the power is off because of it, and we’re in a lockdown situation. The emergency lighting will come on in just a few seconds.” The authoritative voice belonged to Julie Pool, head of the legal department at the casino, to whom I’d been introduced before dinner.
“I not afraid of dark, I afraid of furniture. Is moving.” Svetlana Kharlamova’s operatic Russian tones had been heard and praised around the world for decades. Now she was simply whining.
“Please, Madame, stay still. The furniture isn’t moving, you are. Ms. Pool is correct. If we wait a moment, I’m sure everything will be just fine.” Jimmy Green, the Diva Kharlamova’s assistant, sounded testy, which was hardly surprising, given the way the woman had been acting toward him all evening.
Everyone in the private dining room heaved a sigh of relief when the backup lighting kicked in.
Everyone except Julie Pool, who screamed, “Oh no . . . Look! Somebody’s skewered Miss Shirley to her seat with a silver saber.”
Overture
WHAT JULIE POOL HAD SHOUTED sounded so bizarre that a few people smiled, even chuckled, as they followed her gaze, peering toward the seat in question.
As I approached, I knew immediately that this was no laughing matter. I spotted the hilt of a sword rammed against the upholstered back of the chair, its bloodied blade protruding from the front of Miss Shirley’s limp body. The entire scene was bathed in the garish colors that flooded into the room from The Strip below. The blade itself reflected the starry, low-voltage emergency lighting.
“I faint!” exclaimed the Russian diva, swooning dramatically and causing all attention to turn from the corpse to her.
“No. No, you don’t,” replied her assistant as calmly as he could, given that his slight frame was already beginning to buckle under his charge’s not inconsiderable bulk as she flailed her arms and moaned operatically. Jimmy steered her to a chair being pushed toward the wobbling couple by our barman for the evening, Ian. He looked flustered, which wasn’t surprising. It was, after all, his boss who now sat dead in our midst.
I tried to get a better look at the body, and moved closer. I’m not horribly morbid; it’s just that, as a criminal psychologist, I have a professional interest in crime. I was swiftly joined by Bud, whose big, warm hand wrapped itself around mine.
“Can’t take you anywhere, can I?” he whispered, sighing as he squeezed my fingers.
I allowed myself a worried smile. “You’re not wrong there,” I said, and I shook my head in disbelief. “Whither I go, there follow the corpses.”
“Is that a saying?” Bud asked, looking puzzled.
I sighed. “No, but it probably should be, given my track record. This time, all I did was leave you for five minutes to pop to the loo. What on earth happened while I was gone?”
“Before I answer that, let’s at least make sure the poor woman’s dead,” said my very significant other, his face etched with concern. “Everyone seems to be fussing around our operatic diva over there, so let’s be the ones who pay attention to the real victim, eh? I know from experience that it’s possible to sustain such a devastating injury without being killed. The sword might have, somehow, missed every vital organ.”
I nodded and looked around for a clean napkin through which Bud could check Miss Shirley’s pulse without contaminating the scene. However, as I turned back empty-handed and finally got close enough to the poor woman to be able to look into her face, it was clear that we wouldn’t need to check for signs of life. There was surprisingly little blood, but the only sparkle remaining in her glassy eyes was merely a reflection of the Vegas Strip, of which she had been the acknowledged queen. Miss Shirley, the woman who had inherited a fifty-one percent ownership of the world-famous Tsar! at midnight, just fifteen minutes ago, was very definitely dead.
“I think it went straight through her heart,” observed Bud. He shook his head, then turned and gently rested his arm on my shoulder. “At least she wouldn’t have felt much. Not that that’s the point, of course. Terrible.” His mouth was set in a thin line. “You okay, Cait?” He looked down at me, concern crinkling the skin at the corners of his eyes.
I smiled—as reassuringly as I could. “I’m fine, Bud.” I nodded. “Better than Miss Shirley, in any case,” I added wryly.
The deadening whiteness of the emergency lighting caught the silver in Bud’s hair and eyebrows in a very fetching way, but their icy illumination gave his rugged features a haggard look.
He squeezed my shoulder as he said flatly, “This isn’t going to be pleasant.”
“No dessert, for one thing.” I decided a wink was in order.
Bud allowed himself an indulgent smile, then shook his head. “Oh, Cait, tonight of all nights. Why tonight?”
I had to agree. “Murder is never a good thing, of course, and I’m so sorry it’s spoiled what should have been your birthday celebration.”
Bud looked puzzled. “Oh yes. My birthday,” he said absentmindedly. Odd.
I wondered why he seemed so distracted—other than because he was staring at a corpse.
“Well, that’s that,” he said, as though he’d made some sort of decision. “We’re in for a long night of questions once the cops arrive. Sorry, Cait.” He looked . . . wistful. Very odd.
Any chance to ask him why he was acting so strangely disappeared as we were accosted by Julie Pool, who noticed us hovering over the body and rushed toward us.
“Stop it! You mustn’t touch her. The police will be here any minute. The crime-scene people will want to do their thing. You’d better step away.” Her sleek blond chignon sat demurely abo
ve the collar of her ice-blue suit, which skimmed her trim figure. Her skirt was far enough above her knee for me to be able to note that her legs were well toned and muscular. This woman was obviously much more familiar with the inside of a gym than I’ve ever been. Pearls glowed at her slender throat and on her ears, and her light floral perfume smelled expensive. It was almost as though Grace Kelly had been cast as a lawyer. She was a couple of inches taller than me and wore three-inch heels. I straightened my back.
“Please, don’t be concerned, Ms. Pool,” replied Bud in his calm, professional tones. “I know we haven’t been introduced, but Cait here, who I know you met before dinner, tells me you’re head of the legal department at this casino?” Julie nodded. “As you know, Cait and I are Tom White’s guests tonight. My name’s Bud Anderson, and I’ve been in law enforcement, as a homicide detective among other roles, for decades. I’m retired now, but believe me when I tell you that I know how to treat a crime scene, which this obviously is. You say the relevant agencies are on their way. I’m guessing there’s an alarm sounding somewhere right now. Automatic response?”
Again Julie Pool nodded, but now she had a strange look about her. She looked intrigued and superior at the same time. I got the distinct impression that listening, nodding, and taking a backseat were not in her nature, but Bud has a way about him in a time of crisis. All those years on the force might have taken their toll, but they also prepared him to keep a level head in pretty much any circumstance.
“Good,” continued Bud. He looked around, paying particular attention to the elevator that sat right in the middle of the room. “Okay, we’re in a private dining room at the top of a giant Fabergé egg overlooking the Vegas Strip—”
Julie Pool held up her no-longer-trembling hand to cut across Bud’s observations. “Sorry to be pedantic, Mr. Anderson, but it’s not a Fabergé egg. It’s in the style of a Fabergé egg. It is an homage to the artistic efforts of the Fabergé workshops. No, it is not a Fabergé egg, as my fellow legal professionals who work on behalf of that organization have been at pains to point out.” She sighed. “And thank you for the introductions, but they are superfluous as I happen to know exactly who you are. In order for anyone to be admitted to the owners’ private dining room, they have to be vetted by security. On this occasion they had to refer to me. You raised some interesting red flags on the system when we checked you out.” She arched an eyebrow as she spoke, though she didn’t use it quite as effectively as I have been known to use mine. “You too, Professor Morgan,” she continued, turning her blue-gray eyes toward me. “You have a fascinating background. I can quite understand why you chose to move from the UK to Canada. All those terrible newspaper stories. It must have been difficult for you.” She paused for effect, tilting her head, a knowing smile twitching at her lips.
I understood exactly what she meant. Having been wrongly accused of my ex-boyfriend’s murder when I was studying at Cambridge, I’d found it difficult to shake off the press, long after Angus’s death made the headlines. When they sense blood in the water, the British tabloids have a well-earned reputation for never giving up the hunt for printable copy. I’d lost all sense of a private life, so I’d jumped at the chance to complete my doctoral work at the University of Vancouver, where I’ve spent a happy decade or so. I decided to play it cool, because this woman was beginning to irk me.
“You’re right, it was difficult. But knowing that I was innocent of the crime of which I was accused made it a little easier. However, since you know about my life back in the UK, you must also be aware that I’ve gained some very high clearances in Canada and have worked with various law enforcement agencies in British Columbia on cases where they have used my skills as a victim profiler.” I didn’t phrase it as a question, because I knew it wasn’t one.
“Indeed I do. I’m so pleased to see that the two of you are making a go of it as a couple, since the sad loss of your wife, Mr. Anderson.” Julie Pool smiled almost sweetly as she spoke, the personification of passive-aggressive taunting.
I could tell by the way his jaw muscles twitched that Bud wasn’t impressed by the woman’s comments. I hated her for them, but, in typical fashion, Bud continued with his train of thought and spoke as though she hadn’t interrupted him at all.
“So we are high above The Strip, your employer has, clearly, been viciously murdered, and we have only one point of access, which is now sealed, due to some sort of lockdown. How do we open up the elevator, so that the emergency services can reach us? Or is there an alternate route they can use?”
The lawyer’s face betrayed no emotion as she replied, “There’s a staircase, a fire escape, that leads off the men’s washroom. It, too, will have been sealed automatically, as a part of the security system being activated, but both access points will open when I reset the system, and we’ll get our full electrical power back on too. Alternatively, the fire escape can be opened using another code in the central monitoring office downstairs. It’s the new security system that’s kicked in—the one we had to install to allow us to get all this stuff on loan from the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.” She gestured toward the various objets d’art and paintings that adorned the shoulder-high privacy panels that partitioned the three tables in the sumptuous room from each other. “It cost a fortune, took forever to get up and running, and there have been no end of bugs. The company we chose to install it was recommended by our head of security, something that nearly cost him his job. It was Miss Shirley’s pet project, and a source of great annoyance to her. She said, more than once, that she’d show the people who installed it who was boss. I suspect she’ll hold onto their invoice for quite some time before paying them.”
She paused, and her expression told me she realized what she’d said. She dropped her eyes for a moment, then rallied. “At least, I suspect that’s what Miss Shirley had planned to do. You see, the insurance company wouldn’t let us install the artworks here until we could prove there was absolutely no way out with the swag if somebody lifted something. And I mean ‘lifted’ quite literally—everything here sits on a pressure sensor, even Miss Shirley’s own collection of porcelain and gold, so if any item moves, the system kicks in . . . as it has done now. Though what could have moved I don’t know.” She cast her gaze around the room, giving more attention to the beautiful and priceless antiques that she’d dismissed just a moment ago.
I, too, surveyed the room. I’d already been sitting in it for a few hours, so I’d been able to enjoy much of the magnificent display of Sèvres porcelain pieces, arranged atop the boxy wooden privacy screens. I’d been delighted to be so close to the magnificent paintings that were hung right on the wooden dividers, and therefore at eye level when we were dining. Delicate still-life studies, sweeping landscapes, and intimate portraits bedecked the room, many by artists whose work sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Everything seems to be where it should be,” said Julie after a couple of moments, “and, as I said, everyone here’s been vetted. Other than my husband, you are the only two guests who aren’t members of the Tsar! Organization, so I find it difficult to believe there’s a thief in our midst. Besides, Miss Shirley’s collection is well known, and we’ve had a huge amount of publicity about the loans from Russia. No one would be stupid enough to buy anything stolen from here, surely?” She shook her head and tutted. “I don’t know why I just said that. I must be more flustered than I thought. The one thing I know you can rely on in this world is the stupidity of the people within it.”
Choosing to ignore Julie Pool’s bleak view of her fellow human beings, I looked toward the round elevator pod in the middle of the dining room and noted that the entire thing was now covered by a cylinder of dark gray metal. It looked as though the tube had descended from the ceiling and locked into place. I reasoned that was likely the cause of the loud clanging I’d heard when the hand dryer had stopped screaming at me in the washroom.
“Obviously, it’s just terrible that your boss has been
killed . . .” I said, then I took a few seconds to shake my head sadly. I made sure to emphasize the word boss, because, childishly, I wanted to give the woman a taste of the medicine she’d just dosed out to Bud. However, I’ve found that those for whom passive-aggression is natural rarely perceive it when it’s directed toward them, so unfortunately my taunt went unnoticed. I pressed on. “What on earth happened while I was away?”
When I’d gone to the ladies’ room, the dining room had been filled with the light from half a dozen glittering gold-and-crystal chandeliers, diners had been chatting festively, and we’d all been enjoying a few bottles of fine Dom Pérignon champagne, which Ian the barman had ceremoniously opened with flourishes of what I suspected was the very Russian saber that had killed Miss Shirley.
Julie Pool sighed heavily and shook her head. “I don’t know what happened. I didn’t see a thing. There was a crash, a bang, and then the security system kicked in. It all happened so fast. But Mr. Anderson’s right, I need to release the elevator quickly, so I’ll reset the system. I just have to access the control panel behind the bar, and it’ll all be sorted out. They’re probably already opening the emergency exit from downstairs as we speak.” She nodded curtly and took her leave of us.
“Well, it won’t all be sorted out,” I muttered to Bud, as Julie Pool made her way to the bar. “That poor woman will still be dead.”
Bud nodded grimly as we watched the lawyer pull a surprisingly large bunch of keys from her small evening purse and reach above the bar to unlock a mirrored cupboard.
“She’s wrong, Cait,” said Bud.
“How d’you mean?”
“First there was a bang—almost a pop, really—then, immediately afterward, a cracking noise—not a crash like glass breaking or anything like that. Next there was a huge clang as the metal collar sealed the elevator, then a loud sighing and rumbling. Finally, the power went off.” He counted off the list on his fingers. I had more faith in Bud’s trained recollection of events than in that of the overly assertive Julie Pool, who regained our attention when she began swearing loudly at an illuminated numbered keypad.